Welcome to Teach Me Something New, a podcast from my heart radio in Britain, pal, I'm your host, Brit. I'm an entrepreneur, a CEO, a mom. And I'm curious about a lot of things. We've already learned so much together, and I can't wait for what's next. My co-host, investee and Jenny are back with brand new episodes every Wednesday. Listen to Teach Me Something New on the radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, this is Hillary Clinton, host of the new podcast, You and Me both, there's a lot to be anxious and worried about right now, and it's made so much worse by the fact that we can't be together. So I find myself on the phone a lot, talking with friends, experts, really anyone who can help make some sense of these challenging times. These conversations have been a lifeline for me.

And now I hope they will be for you to please listen to you and me both on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Pay fam Jada Pinkett Smith, and this is the Red Tablecloth podcast, all your favorite episodes from the Facebook Watch show in audio produced by Westbrooke Audio and I Heart Radio, please don't forget to write and review on Apple podcasts.

Last time at the Red Table will and share some very private truths about our relationship.

I was building a picture. I felt that money and winning made a good relationship, just like any couple has been together for close to twenty five years.

We went through every emotion.

There was a period where Mommy woke up and cried. Forty five days straight and one day our marriage came crashing down.

I was failing miserably.

I can't do this like this anymore.

We came to the realization that we had to redefine our relationship. This is our journey to finding unconditional love.

We're back at the red table with Will because episode one was not enough, so we're going to continue the conversation.

What was your hardest time in our marriage? I think the turning point in our relationship for me happened when I turned 40, that's when I had a midlife crisis.

Yeah, your fortieth birthday was my low point. The day after her thirty seventh birthday, I hired a team to orchestrate her fortieth birthday. I hired a documentary team. I traced Mom's family roots. Our fortieth birthday was going to be my thing. It's going to be a splash. It was going to be a splash.

And Mary J. Blige, Mary J. Blige performed that debuted the film. All of that. It was going to be the thing that lifted her out of this midlife crisis. And she was going to be my deepest, most beautiful proclamation of love. And we did it. And I have found tapes of Jada's grandmother and her grandmother had recorded these voice messages over the last like eight months of her life. And it was tapes that Jada had never heard.

Wow.

So Jada had to sit there and listen. I I understand thoroughly now. At the time, I didn't.

But she's listening to these never before heard tapes of one of the dearest people she's ever known in our life in front of all of these people. So she's she's holding it together. She's getting it together. Then I have Mary J. Blige performing the whole time.

I'm like the little boy that wants mommy to say everything was wonderful. Right. And she's having a really difficult emotional time. And then when we got back to the room, it was me, you and Mommy. And we were talking about the next day and everything's planned for the next day. And she said, I'm not sure I want to do anything.

The next day you can just cancel it. And I said, well, we can. Let's keep it. And then tomorrow you can decide. She was like, I'm telling you now, I don't want to do anything tomorrow. And I say, well, it's OK, it's OK. We'll just wait and see.

I just wanted to have intimate, just intimate time.

And I was like, well, I'll cancel tomorrow. She was like, it's my birthday. Right? And she told me that the party was the most ridiculous display of my ego.

Crushed, right? And to this day, I know I was crushed because it was true it wasn't a party for her. And when she called me on that, that's when I snapped. And I'm sorry, that was the only time you ever heard me snap.

Thank God. And I snapped in front of Willow was the only time in her childhood she ever saw me snap. And I saw her look and Willow starts crying. And I was like, Baby, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I just figure that you guys please just figure it out. Just figure it out.

All right?

And I was like, and this is that was a display, that moment of like me having the courage to just say, no, no.

Yeah, yeah. But now I had to have the courage to unravel it.

And just realizing this next 40, I got to do it my way. This next half has to be directed by my picture for myself.

I have to say that when you guys were going through that transition, I was like, what the hell? Right. Because everything was just changing. Yeah, well, yeah. But I didn't know there was a need for change.

There was so much that was it me that I was living so much in authenticity. I do think that there are a lot more people living lives that aren't true, aren't true.

That is them because of their fear. So I understand and there's no judgment. I did it right.

And with some of that, what you felt like you had to present yourself to the public? I was much more conscious of public perception than Jada. Yeah, right. There was an idea.

I was trying to live up to an idea for him. Right. I got some pictures. I was crying so hard after your birthday that my eyes look so red. I took pictures of myself and I was like, I want to remember this. That was a difficult one for me. When you stopped clapping, when I did things in the exterior world that were great, Willo really broke it for me with whip my hair in the middle of all the whip, my hair stuff.

She was on tour and she was having it was a great show and everything was amazing. Amazing. It was like it was we were at the top of the world with my hair. It's played Jay-Z side is beautiful. And she was like, OK, I'm done, daddy.

And I was like, Sweetie, you can't you can't be done. You know, you made a commitment. She was like, but I'm finished. I was like, I know, sweetie, but you can't be finished. You made a commitment to Mr. Jay-Z. You know that. You made a commitment to Mr. Jay-Z. We did. I really say that.

Yes. You realize that it doesn't it doesn't matter that I'm done. Oh, yes, we do. It matters a lot. It does. But you can't be done. She came down the next day and had shaved her head ball. I was like, does she know what she's doing? Like, that was a deep protest. What it did for me is I had a crazy realization in that moment. I was building what I wanted for her.

And she tried all the different ways to say, I don't want that. Yeah, I was like, I get it. And I saw for the first time what Jada had been saying the whole time about hiding behind my ego and my dreams and my desires and pretending like it's love. And I realized she didn't want none of the stuff I had built. If you're like me, you probably start thinking about what to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch.

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How long did it take for you to talk to a therapist?

My body felt like it was in a fight or flight. I can't do this anymore.

I'm Steve Smith, senior. And I'm Darryl Littlejohn. And we're teaming up to cut to listen and follow on the I Heart Radio Apple podcast or wherever you listen to the podcast.

The house was too big. It was always too many people here. She didn't want to have to travel the way we traveled. She didn't want all of her kids to be getting trolled on Twitter like she didn't want any of that.

And that's why I stopped clapping and there was a decline from there.

Yeah. To have to let go of the picture, to have to let go of the dream was devastating. We essentially had to destroy our marriage. Oh yeah. She was like, I can't do this anymore. And to me that was it was over. But divorce was never even an option.

I was like, wait a minute, hold it. No, no, no, no, no. Like when people I was reading in the tabloids that we were getting divorced and all of that stuff, and it was like it was I never even seen a divorce lawyer. I was like, that was never it was never even a consideration I like.

But was it for you? Because I had been divorced before. I wasn't getting divorced again.

Right. OK, I was like, divorce wasn't an option. There was a time when I was scared that she might want to tell you like this.

I put in too much.

Yeah. Period. What is most important to me is my family, you would think about the kids and about our family, not even just our immediate nucleus, but we have such a huge extended family. Exactly.

And I knew that divorce wasn't necessary. Why do that? Why create all that disruption? That's all Will from the gate. I said, let me tell you something. If you marry me, know this, we're going to be together. We're going to be under the same roof.

You might be on one end of that Joga with somebody else, not always go with somebody else. Yeah. And I always said, that's ridiculous. Oh, we're going to be.

Yeah. In this Joga together. Yeah. So that's what we are going to do. That's not what either of us wants. Well I don't want to leave this table making people feel like divorce is wrong.

Sometimes that is what you need. Right. For whatever you need to discover about the situation yourself.

But for me personally, I knew that there was no reason that he and I whatever. We just needed to get to agreement between he and I.

Yeah, I was devastated. Even worse than a divorce. We we broke up within our marriage and got back together again.

I had to rebuild. I had to rebuild with new rules and something way different, something way completely different.

The thing about it is that you really have to go your separate ways to figure out your stuff.

Yeah, you got to be strong enough and understand clearly what it is you're in search for. You know what it is you want, what it is you don't want, because the whole time when you're when you're in a union, you point fingers because you're thinking it's your partner, because you guys are saying it's her fault.

This house is great. Exactly. This house is great. This family is great in a golden cage. Yeah, that's right. And so you have to do it like build this for her. And she don't appreciate in a golden cage, a beautiful cage.

But you have to go your separate ways and get out of each other's way to really see yourself. So I had to go away.

Gave my strength. Is Jada again not mommy. Not wife.

Right. Jada Corren. Yeah, right. That's the big that's the big one. People say it all the time. I've defined myself. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I took off for two years. Yeah. Yeah. I worked on myself. I read fifty books now on marriage and relationships and behavioral psychology. I was not going to fail in this marriage. Right.

But I shut down for two entire years to see what, what was I doing wrong.

And it takes a lot of beating up on each other because really what you're breaking down is all the fantasies burning away, all of your fantasies.

That fantasy stars so young. Yes. And you hold on to that for dear life. That's all you know. Right. Ultimately, to have a successful relationship, you have to be in a relationship with a human being.

Yeah, imperfect, flawed human being. Because what happened was our characters, we're trying to have a relationship. And if you're going to wear a mask, then the person is trying to love your mask. Right? They're trying to love the image that you're presenting, but that's not what you really need. Right? Right.

What you really come to understand that there's no right or wrong. Yeah. Everybody's operating from a place of hurt.

Yeah, everybody's broken. Everybody's broken. And what I realized, the idea that my brokenness created all of my discomfort.

Absolutely mine to my the fact that I was broken and I learned how to look fixed to the world.

Right. Right. Well, Smith is a character.

Yeah, right. But deep down inside, I was an insecure little boy that wanted Jada to say I was great.

Oh, right. And if she didn't say I was great, if a dragon came out. Yeah.

But for me personally, I had a lot of emotional maturity to do.

I had just realized I had a lot of childhood traumas that I had brought with me, that I wasn't aware of a lot of father issues.

And, you know, I realized that I had to learn to be a lot of things for myself because I used to think, well, if you don't need somebody, then you can't love them. Right, exactly. And if you're not needed, then you're not loved.

That was a false belief I had. I can't expect someone to love me more than me.

You know, if you don't like being with you, makes you think somebody else wants to be with you, you love yourself.

That's what we expect people to love us more than we love ourselves.

We expect other people to do the work for us. I definitely went through that was Will. I thought it was his job to make me. Feel a certain way. I had to break that fantasy. Yeah, I actually retired. I said, you know what?

If I retire, I am no longer doing the job of trying to make you happy. You know what? You are free to go make yourself happy. And you do anything. Yeah, anything. You want to make yourself happy and you bring your ass back here happy just to show me that is even possible. Yeah. Fly Valiquette. Yeah, you know, I was angry, but it's really that's true, yeah, and that's the thing I had to learn.

I have to be the thing that I'm asking for and if I can be it, then I can create it.

I would say if there were a thing that was the most detrimental to our relationship during that time was my unconsciousness. The other side of that is the key to a relationship is understanding your partner's plight, right? Right.

There is nothing greater. For a human being to feel understood in 2012, I had built everything I had ever dreamed about as a little boy, I saw this family, I saw this life, I've been building this.

And I was like, no, no, no.

What's important is how we're connecting internally, like how we are relating to hard right where the complete opposite.

Yeah. These are the things that we had to break. Break. Yes. Come to new understanding and recreate. Yeah. Will and I have decided to even throw away the concept of marriage.

We don't even call ourselves married. You know, it's a life partnership in the sense that we've created a foundation together that we know is for this lifetime.

This lifetime, we have not voted ourselves to each other in a spiritual sense and spiritual, spiritual, emotional.

It's like whatever she needs, she can count on me for the rest of her life and vice versa.

To me, it gives us the freedom to create a different context, first of all, for ourselves and not have to live up to the expectation of what people consider marriage to be.

Expectations are the mother of disappointment.

Oh, my God, I can't. Yeah, I can't do them.

And now there's no fight. There's no struggle. There's no me needing him to be something or do something.

There's nothing that could happen that we won't be together and love each other and love each other through, you know, love each other through what?

And it's not because we just saying it is because we've cracked each other's heads wide open.

Yeah, right. And we woke up the next day and high fives and kept going. Yeah, right. And I think that's the part that we set each other free. Right. And people really struggle with that. The things that Jada needs to be happy. I'm not going to agree with them. All right. I truly have learned the definition of unconditional love.

And to me, that's what it's about.

Yeah. I love you. I support you. I'm going to help you be happy no matter what. I don't have to like it.

Yeah, I describe it as the day the deal breakers are gone. We don't have any deal breakers.

I always knew I'm not marriage material. What I am is write a check.

What you are is the best friend that I've ever had. Yeah. Hi, this is Hillary Clinton, host of the new podcast, You and Me both, there's a lot to be anxious and worried about right now, and it's made so much worse by the fact that we can't be together. So I find myself on the phone a lot, talking with friends, experts, really anyone who can help make some sense of these challenging times. These conversations have been a lifeline for me.

And now I hope they will be for you to please listen to you and me both on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the secret syllabus podcast. I remember the good old times when I was a college student and then 20, 20 hit. Hi, I'm Hannah Ashton, and I'm Katy Tracy. We're here to fill in everything they missed in our college curriculum, just like you were confronting the unknown.

And if we're being honest, we need all the advice we can get.

Listen to the secret syllabus on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, see after class. You're the best partner I've ever had. And sometimes that gets lost in the marriage and I think for many years you and I.

Oh, man, I know we really tried to fit into them.

We tried really hard. We tried really hard. What we have between us is family and friendship, you know, as a life partnership.

We are in a union no matter what we talk about and we talk about anything and everything is rough, rugged and roll, rough, rugged around.

We can we can break a ridge, but a crack in a real time.

But to me, that's what being in a relationship. That's what I mean. And I'm not saying this for every woman.

That's what Jada needs, you know, and I will needs when people say love, they mean it transactionally. Right.

I love you as long as you do things that make me feel good. Yes. And don't do the things that make me feel good. Or if you do even worse, you do something that makes me feel bad.

I don't love you.

And I'm going to discuss I'm going to disconnect myself from you right when you go to sleep at night knowing you have an unbreakable love and unbreakable friendship and unbreakable connection, that's how you want to go to sleep every night. Yeah.

And that your love for the truth. For the truth. You are not who you think you should be for somebody.

And that has been the ultimate release and freedom, in my experience, the thing that everybody's looking for is not found entrapping a person to vows. Yeah. And releasing each other from obligations and expectations has made all of the moments blissful. We did a thing probably about four years ago. It was like, OK, here's the deal. We're only going to do two things together we love. What happened is we gave each other 10 days out of the year that we would do with the other person one vacation in the summer.

She'll come with me because I want to while out, I want to ride on a volcano. I want to see that's not a vacation for her. Right. So she'll go with me for those 10 days and then I'll come for Christmas and sit around and do the same.

Last year was the weather, we got the same song, right? She wants to go on vacation. She wants nostalgia to do the same things over and over again.

And when I go, it's Cobbora Transition. No, I get it.

And I'm there for 10 days. But I want to go on an adventure. I don't ever want to go to the same place a second time.

And we really gave each other the freedom to to do the things that the world is my home. Yeah. Anywhere I am, I'm comfortable. Yeah.

And Jada just doesn't do that to doesn't want it.

It's not fun. It's disruptive. She runs around the globe of the soul.

That's really the internal. You got you got Lenny Kravitz lyric. Like many of his lyrics, but that's true.

You do the external journeying and I do the internal yeah, it took a lot of stepping of Will and I together apart together, a lot of understanding, lot of communication.

But it took years. Yeah, it took years. And I would say we are just now getting to a place probably I would say the last year.

Yeah. Probably a lot of change in both of you in the last year. Yes. This year has been amazing.

The paradox of it all is so crazy. The pain that Jader caused me was the pain I needed to survive to learn how to be happy. Yeah.

And vice versa. Right. I've never been happier in my life either. Oh, you're so well, now that we've brought it to the table. Are we concerned about all the beautiful rumors that are now stir up in the media?

It's going to be like us. So let's so hold on. Let's clear some rumors. Let's be real. No, no, no, no, no. It's not possible. But just to have it on record, just historical rumors. We've never been Scientologists. True. We've never been swingers. Never been never been swear. People understood that that's a specific lifestyle. There's a really specific like we never been swingers. What else? But they know what they're going to say.

It's really your friends that we worried about.

You shouldn't be worried about anybody at all at the end of the day, because I'm going to believe whatever they want to me. And who knows if, you know, it might change and transition again.

You know why I never got divorced is cheaper to keep me.

No, I can't believe it because I've never met anybody like you.

And I knew if I wasn't with you, I'd be searching in vain for the rest of my life.

Oh, Lord. See, sometimes he says the right thing, the true. Thank you for coming. We appreciate you and I just want to say thank you for everything. We love you. I love you to death.

You have found something with this red table in this space that I tried my damndest to build for you, the space where you get to fully and honestly and thoroughly be you and to get all of the love and the praise that you deserve. When I see you on this red table, it is the joy that I have always hoped you would have. Thank you.

I always knew he was the best.

Oh. Oh, my gosh, thank you. That means a lot to me. I love you.

We love you on our next roundtable table talk will and always being accused of being a Scientologist this and being that, I was just caught up in that and also the pain of others, I was hurt.

But Jada, I wasn't even considering that she would be hurt and get in.

All right, everybody. Nothing that I came on the red table, I smashed, I smashed, they never had a guest like me, they might they might have to cancel the show because it's like they're going to do after that.

Hey, hey, wait. Table talk family. Let's head to our table talk Facebook. What show page. Join the conversation and become a part of red table talk to join the red table talk family and become a part of the conversation.

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I'm your host Amena Brown and each week I'm bringing you hilarious storytelling and soulful conversation was entering the stories of black, indigenous, Latin and Asian women are with Amina Brown is a living room where I invite you to hear new perspectives, poetic readings of things you never thought could be poetic and celebrating women of color, who, because of their contributions to the world and their community, are deserving of a crown.

I'm really excited to bring women of color who are artists, authors, business women, inventors and leaders in every sector into our living room so we can learn from their expertise and have the honor of hearing their stories. Join me as we remind each other to access joy, affect change and be inspired. Listen to her with Amina Brown on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

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I look at everything through a racial list.

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When people protest in a country that means they still love it enough, but they still believe change is possible.

I have hope that we are actually going to figure out how to allow people to be free hearted, free thinkers.

Listen to the deciding decade on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.